"I know, ma'am."

"I hope you do," Carey said. "Grace, I only want to help you. If he touched you sexually, the fault is his, not yours. No matter what he said. Look at me." She steepled her fingers. "Tell me what to do to help you."

Grace fixed her stare at the paperweight, shutting down as she had with the psychologist at Crestwood. It was the only way she had to protect herself from feelings too painful to bear. "Nothing, ma'am."

"I'm over here," Carey said, reaching out and taking away the paperweight. "I can't help you if you don't let me." She waited but Grace refused to respond. "All right, go wash your face and get ready for whatever class you have next." The teen rose and headed for the door. "Grace, this isn't the last time we'll be having this conversation."

"Yes, ma'am."

"It's too hot to be in BDUs," Jan grumbled, lifting her olive cap and wiping her brow. "They should at least let us get out of the camo shirts."

"Word," Latisha said, fanning herself with her hat. "Scary's coming."

"All right, girls, line up," Instructor Carey said as she arrived, also dressed in camouflage pants and shirt. She set the box she was carrying on the ground. "I bet you're wondering where Alpha Squad is. Instructor Gage came in early today so we could have this exercise. You have to work as a team to succeed at this task."

We're screwed, Grace thought to herself.

"There are four identical courses and the squads are going against each other for the best time," Carey continued. "There are blue flags hidden in this section of woods." She pointed at the trees behind the squad. "When you reach the finish line, each one of you must have a blue flag in your right side pocket. If it's in your shirt pocket, you lose. If it's in your left side pocket, you lose. One person missing a flag, you lose. Any questions so far?"

"No, ma'am," Bravo Squad said.

"When you have all nine flags, continue north until you reach the water tower. I'll give you further instructions then." Carey knelt down and opened the box. "Jones, pass these out." Taking one of the canteens, she stood up and unhooked her belt. "Loop it through your belt like this,"


she demonstrated. "I suggest you put it back here, not on the side where it would bounce against your hip and get in the way of your arm."

"Better it bounce off my ass," Jan said in a low voice to Grace.

"What good are empty canteens?" Grace asked as she took the plastic container and canvas carrying case. "Maybe we fill them at the water tower."

"So why give them to us now?" Jan said. "She could have had the box waiting at the tower."

"Yeah, but then we'll be timed," Grace said, tightening the web belt.

"So? We're probably gonna lose anyway," Jan said. "Christine always holds us back on these things."

"Enough chatter," Instructor Carey said, ending all the conversations. "Remember that teamwork will get you to victory and if the goal of being the best isn't enough for you, the winning squad gets a special treat, courtesy of your instructor." She removed the mirrored sunglasses, hooking them through her shirt pocket. "I bet a pint of ice cream would taste real good after a hard day of PT and classes, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" they shouted excitedly.

"Then I suggest you work hard and as a team to get the best time," Carey said, reaching for her whistle. "Bravo Squad ready?"

"Ready, ma'am," several girls said.

Carey blew her whistle. "Go."

"If you find one, help someone else," Campbell said as they split up and looked high and low for the elusive blue flags. Grace found one quickly, shouting out to let the others know. Some flags were hidden in the brush, others tacked up on the trees. The team spread out, covering the wooded area and finding the last flag dangling from a high branch.

"Well how the hell are we supposed to get it?" Jan asked as several made unsuccessful jumps at the flag taunting them from above.

"There's gotta be a trick to it," Grace said. "She said we had to work as a team to accomplish the goals."

"But we can't reach it and there's nowhere to hold onto so we can climb the tree," Jan said.

"If we can get some weight on that branch, I bet it'd come down to where we can reach it," Grace said, walking under the branch and studying how it arched and dipped. "Here. If we can get someone up to it, the weight should make it drop."

"It's at least twelve feet high," Jan said. "No one can jump that high."

"We can build a pyramid," Maribel said. "Like the cheerleaders do."

"You're definitely on the bottom, Bowen," Rosetti said.

"Bite me," Jan said, kneeling down and bracing herself. Grace knelt down next to her, offering her back for the next tier. Some of the girls argued about who would be a support and who would try to reach the branch. In the end, after much grumbling and time wasting, it was decided that Latisha would make the jump, being the lightest of the squad. Campbell took position on Jan's left side while Mo removed her glasses and became the fourth in the bottom layer.

"Watch that knee, Maribel," Grace said, wincing when the teen's knee pressed against her spine.

"I don't know if I can do this," Campbell said, adjusting her hands to lock her elbows. "Easy, Thompson, that's my friggin' back."

"Hey, it's high enough with two rows," Latisha said.

"Then hurry up and go," Grace said, feeling the strain of two girls' knees on her back. She felt the weight shift as Latisha climbed over the others to get to the top.

"Okay, I got it," Latisha said. "It won't come down far enough."

"Someone else get up there," Jan said. "And hurry the hell up."

There were several grunts and groans as Rosetti made the journey and gripped the branch. As Bravo Squad had hoped, the limb dipped enough for the last flag to be retrieved. "I'm letting go," Latisha said.

"I can't hold on," Campbell said a split second before her arms gave out, sending the pyramid of teens tumbling down. Since they were in the middle, Jan and Grace took the worst of it, squashed between the ground and two layers of girls blindly pushing with their arms and legs to get out of the heap.

"Nine buckets, one spigot, one barrel," Carey said as the teens entered the clearing. She pointed at the knothole near the top of the barrel. "Your goal is to fill the barrel until water starts to come out of the hole. Once I say clear, go west two miles along the dirt path, clearing each obstacle," Carey said. "It's going to be a long hot run, ladies. You should think about that."

"Once she says clear," Grace said. "Let's fill our canteens from the barrel."

"Take off our canteens, then fill them and put them back on?" Jan shook her head. "That'll waste too much time.”

"We don't have to take them off," Latisha said. "Just unsnap it from the case."

"Or loosen the belt and dunk the canteen in," Grace said. "Doesn't matter if we get wet. It's hot as hell already and we haven't even started running."

"Let's go, ladies," Cary said, "time is ticking away and so are your chances at getting ice cream." The teens scrambled to the buckets, then lined up at the spigot to fill them.

"Let's make a relay," Thompson said, handing her near-full bucket to Latisha and taking an empty one from Grace.

"Yeah, like those old bucket brigades they used for fires," Jan said, spreading out to make the chain from the tower to the barrel. "Don't fill them up so high because it's splashing out."

"Half full," Grace said. "It'll be lighter and easier to carry that way."

She grunted as she took the nearly full bucket from Thompson and passed it to Jan. "Watch it, it's heavy."

"Jeez, Thompson, make it lighter, will ya?" Jan said as water sloshed over the sides of the metal buckets. It took a few tries to get a rhythm going but once they did, Bravo Squad had no trouble making their bucket brigade work.

"We're halfway there," Mo yelled. "Keep 'em coming."

"I can only fill the bucket so fast," Thompson said.

"So what are we supposed to be learning from this?" Jan asked.

"Filling a barrel doesn't seem like a skill I'm going to be needing in the future."

"Well duh-uh," Grace said, handing her a bucket. "Think about it. If we each took turns filling a bucket and hauling it over there, we'd be tired and it'd probably take longer. Remember Carey said teamwork was the key. We're learning teamwork."

"Carey, huh?" Jan said, nudging her with an elbow. "What happened to Queen Bitch from Hell?"

Grace shrugged. "She's been easing up on the bitch lately. Even sat down and played cards with me the other night."

"You let her win, right?"

Grace passed another bucket. "I didn't let her win, she won because she plays gin better than I do."

"Uh-huh," Jan said. "Take my advice, if she asks you to play anything, let her win."

"Why? She's probably not a sore loser.”

"You really wanna take the chance to find out?" Jan shook her head.

"Why didn't they just let us play a game of softball or something? We have a ball field and never get to use it."

"I heard the state took the bats away after one girl cracked another girl's head open arguing balls and strikes," Thompson said. "Therefore we get to fill buckets with water."

"Almost there," Mo yelled. The squad moved faster, hoping each time a bucket was dumped that the water would be high enough to start coming out the hole.

"Get ready to fill your canteens," Grace said, reaching between bucket passes to loosen her belt.

"Clear!"

"Let's go," Jan said, the girls dropped the buckets and raced for the barrel. Water sloshed about as they pushed the canteens underwater and waited for the air bubbles to stop.

"Watch it," Latisha said when someone splashed water on her.

"Don't worry about it," Grace said, bracing her hands on the side of the barrel as the last canteen was filled. "It's so hot you'll dry in no time." Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and dunked her head. Oh that's cold, she thought, staying underwater for several seconds before standing up. "That felt good," she said, running her fingers through her wet blonde hair. She happily let the excess run down her back, soaking her shirt and pants.

"Come on, Grace, let's go," Jan said, waiting for her at the edge of the clearing near the trail.

''I'm coming," she said, running to catch up to the others.

The first obstacle was a pile of logs placed across the trail. It barely slowed them down and soon they were upon the second, and much more challenging, barrier. The squad stopped, unsure of what to do. "How the hell are we supposed to get past this?" Grace asked, staring warily at the wall made of cargo netting.

"Guess we climb," Jan said, grabbing hold and putting her foot on the bottom rung. As soon as she took her weight off the ground, the loose netting began to sway, taking her off balance. "Oh, no way." She jumped off and stood aside as Latisha tried with the same results.

"We have to keep the ropes from moving," Grace said, checking the slack in the netting. "If two of us hold it still, everyone else should be able to go up and over."

"And then what?" Rosetti said. "How are those two gonna get over?"

"Two of the people that make it over hold the net on the other side for them," Grace said.

"Well let's do something," Thompson said. "We're wasting time standing around here."

"Let's go," Grace said, tugging on the cargo netting. Rosetti grabbed the other side, creating the tension needed. There was enough room for two girls to go up at the same time, finding it much easier when the cargo netting didn't move around.

"Go, go," Jan urged, hooking her foot in the net when the first pair was halfway up. "You know they're doing this just to torment us."

"Watch, we'll probably lose by a couple of seconds," Grace said as Jan and Thompson began climbing. Looking further up the trail, she spotted the dark-haired figure leaning against a tree. Brown eyes met her; and Grace swore she saw the barest of smiles directed at her before Carey looked away. "Come on, let's go," she said to her teammates, hoping to raise their enthusiasm. Finally it was she and Rosetti left to conquer the netting. I can do this, she told herself as she grabbed hold. Just don't look down. "You'd better hold it tight, Jan."

"Don't worry, Maribel and I got it," Jan said. "Now climb."